Disclaimer: This is only an attempt at universal American Humor, and it is Absolutely Fictional. Thanks.
An American Commercial Experience
It was another once a week night at Mickey's Bar and Grill, where the pitchers of beer were $5 between 6 and 8 pm, and the all you can eat Buffalo wings special was $14. Mickey's was a large establishment, featuring 6 pool tables, loud Country Music, and really good looking well-built babes that often could out hooter Hooters (TM). There at the pool table, once a week, Brian allowed himself his once a week vice. From about 5 pm he would play one to three games of pool against all comers, make a clear profit of at least $30 for a pitcher of beer and all the Chicken hot-wings he could eat, along with tax and the tip, and after he was done, walk about a mile and a half home.
One day, an Advertising Executive stopped by the restaurant, put up $1000, and challenged anyone who could beat him to do the same. No one would take him up on the offer.
"Would you take $500 against your $1000?" Brian asked.
"Damned straight." said the Advertising Executive. "Cash on the Barrel."
With that, the Executive whipped out a bankroll of about eighty $100 bills, counted out ten of them, and placed it on the barrel upon which drinks only where served and set near every pool table.
Brian meekly pulled out his wallet, looked at his two-week pay stub, and took out twenty-five $20 bills, and half-ashamedly observed the remaining $60, knowing full well the consequences if he should lose, counted out his $500 on the barrel also. The money was then turned over to the Bar's Shift Manager, who placed it in an envelope, and the envelope into the safe behind the Bar.
A coin toss gave the first shot to Brian, who promptly sank two solids on his opening shot, and never looked back. The Advertising Executive asked for a double or nothing, and Brian refused. Taking the envelope, and tipping the Bar manager $100,Brian then hurriedly dashed off to the Restaurant side to have his favorite waitress serve him up a pitcher of Beer and a plate of 20 Chicken hot-wings. Realizing that he had let a Commercial prospect go, the Advertizing Executive invited himself over to Brian's table, sat down, and made a proposition.
"Look here...my name is Ralph Petersen...I make or oversee the making of television commercials for 37 of this nation's largest consumer purchased companies. Can you always shoot pool like that?"
"Usually," Brian replied, "unless I have an off night."
"May I?' Ralph said, as he pointed to the chair. Brian nodded and Ralph sat down.
"I'd like to make a proposition. I know you're somewhat a homely sort of a ...not camera friendly sort of a guy, but I could use you, the shots that you can make, I mean, in one of the commercials I'll be making in 4 to 6 weeks. Would you be interested? "
"How much, and when and where would it be shot?" Brian asked.
"2,500 is the industry rate, plus the Screen Actors Guild initiation fee and the dues for the quarter. If you do really well, and we can wrap up the shots in under an hour and use it for more than 10 seconds of the 29 second Commercial we got planned, there's a bonus of $6000 and a pro rata of 12 cents for every time we air the Commercial good for the next 10 years. Interested?"
"Uh huh." Brian muttered.
Sure enough, 5 weeks rolled by and Brian let loose some pool table shots never before seen on camera: such as his 360 back spin boomerang in which the cue ball just behind the right fore pocket was struck into a wild spin by the cue stick, striking the solid stripe side ball into the side pocket while proceeding on to strike 5 other striped pool balls in succession each in order on the same shot: into right rear pocket and then the left rear pocket and then the left side pocket and then the left fore pocket and just barely making it to knock the last ball in the right fore pocket.
The President of the Beer Company for which the Commercial was produced, a pool sharp in his own right, was so impressed that he had Brian invited as an exhibition for his Industrialist friends and their wives at a big event he was holding at his mansion. One thing led to another, and before he knew it, Brian had made very impressive social inroads with a mogul who had a $120,000,000 advertising account with Ralph's firm, and who insisted Brian be given a $50,000 budget and make any kind of Commercial he would like, to promote his new Super Extra Dry Underarm Deodorant, and that he should have all the cooperation he needed. Since the wife (the mogul's wife) loved Joan River's comedy monologues, and since she was only temporarily under contract, that they should see if they could work her into the Commercial. The only proviso was that it should be light-hearted and funny.
With that, Brian really went to work. He heard tell of a Chicken ranch just outside of Buffalo, New York, where after 5 years, a Chicken Rancher was able to teach some 80 chickens how to line up in formation and simultaneously do jumping jacks...except they only hopped each count straight up instead of spreading their feet as they lifted out their wings to full extension and returned back again on the count.
A week later, he found himself being choked half to death by Ralph, while innocently sitting in his chair, just as the mogul and his wife walked in to view the Commercial.
The Commercial Opened thus:
Joan: Hi everybody. This is Joan Rivers outside the famous Buffalo Chip Chicken Ranch just outside Buffalo New York to help spread the word about ******'s New Super Extra Dry underarm deodorant.
{Screen shot: the 80 assembled Hens and lined up. Joan approaches the owner, dressed in sweats and holding a duck call whistle, and asks how that ******'s Super Extra Dry is so important to him.]
Owner: Well Joan, as you know, every day, I'm out here training my flock of chickens. Right now, you see them with their wings down and they don't smell so bad, do they?"
Joan: No they don't.
Owner: Well let's change that. [The owner blows once in a short burst on the duck whistle, and the hens simultaneously hop once, and freeze in place with their wings up.]
Joan: Oh my...what is that smell? Is that the chickens? I never knew chickens had arm pit smell before. {Cough!} That's so disgusting. I can't take the smell any more. We're outta here.
[Screenshot: the Owner applies just a little dab under the wings of a couple of his chickens.
Screen shot: Joan and the owner return to standing in font of the assembled chickens, now with their wings down.]
Owner: Okay Joan, let's do that over again. All the hens now have ******* Super Extra Dry applied under their wings. [He blows his duck call once, and again, the hens simultaneously hop once, and freeze in place with their wings up.]
Joan: Oh, that it so much better. Why, it almost smells like fresh spring.
[Screen-shot: Joan by herself holding up the underarm deodorant while in the background right, the Owner and his chickens do jumping jacks together as he duck calls short and long for wings up and wings down.]
Joan: So there you have it folks, ****** Super Extra Dry, it's for the birds!
[With that the Commercial ended, and Brian found himself on the floor being choked out by 3 people: Ralph the Advertising Executive, the mogul, and his wife.
Sad to say, Brian survived his life-changing experience, and returned to his old job and same apartment with what could be described for the next 6 or 7 weeks as a polka dotted neck.]
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